


my kind's your kind; i'll stay the same

by m_oliverfan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Heavy Angst, Unrequited Love, beau is sad and conflicted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:48:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_oliverfan/pseuds/m_oliverfan
Summary: In a brief moment of rest, Beau drinks a shitty alcoholic drink out of a coconut and tries not to look at her friend.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	my kind's your kind; i'll stay the same

**Author's Note:**

> This just came out of me while I was watching the last episode... Honestly, I really think that the Beau/Jester relationship deserved a little more closure than 'sometimes you just fall in lust with your best friend and eventually it goes away'. There was something there that isn't present anymore and I can't get it out of my head. 
> 
> Anyway, this is very angsty and very sad.
> 
> Title from Maps by Freya Ridings

They are resting on the beach after half of them almost got killed, and the first thing Beau does is ask around until the locals point her towards a stand that sells alcoholic drinks mixed in coconuts.

“Anyone else want one?” She holds out the coconuts balanced in her arms. 

Fjord grabs one and so does Yasha. Beau hands Caduceus a non-alcoholic drink she’d thought to pick up. Veth grabs two and walks off to sit beside a spaced out Caleb, who has pulled off his boots and is moving his toes through the sand over and over again, his eyes glazed over as he looks out at the shore.

Beau sits down in the sand and takes a sip. She notices that Jester and Fjord are talking quietly to her right. Fjord groans but there’s a smile on his lips and he flings himself on the sand to Jester’s delight. She sits down behind him and starts braiding his hair. 

Beau tilts her head away so that she can’t see them at all. Her eyes track Yasha as she walks down the beach and kneels as if she’s praying. 

She took a large sip of her drink and tried not to think of the feeling swirling around in her chest. She got what she wanted, didn’t she? By all accounts, at least by her friend’s, she should be elated, on top of the world. 

It wasn’t as if she wasn’t happy. Beau thought that whatever small taste of happiness she’d gotten in her life, she had felt more and more of it the longer she’d been with the Might Nein. And she’d gone a date with a woman she’d been flirting with for ages and there were fucking  _ ninjas  _ involved. It was great. Yasha loved her and maybe Beau loved her back. She could, she definitely could eventually if she didn’t right now. 

But everything had changed so fast. 

It felt like years ago that they were in the Xhorhouse, making nice with the Bright Queen and stopping a war, but it had barely been a couple of months. And now they were chasing  _ Molly  _ \- not Molly, not Molly, not Molly - who was going to bring about the end of the world if left unchecked. They’d already almost died so many times and they were about to run off towards death’s door again. 

Beau caught movement in the corner of her eye and watched Jester get up, her eyes on Yasha, and walk off down the beach. They sit together for a while and Beau lets herself look at them, the only two people she’d ever really  _ loved _ . 

She thinks that maybe that was part of it. She thought that her life might look like one thing, maybe they’d stop a war and they would stay in the Empire a while or even in Xhorhas, and she would be an expositor and they would find something like happiness after the waters settled. 

And happiness used to be dressed in blue, with laughter as bright and bubbly as hard candy. 

“These are actually kind of horrible.” The sound of Fjord moving to sit next to her sounded from her right. She looked away from the figures in the distance and glanced at him. 

“Does the job, right?” She drank the rest of hers in one gulp before she discarded the coconut. She frowned slightly. “Well, I thought it might.” 

He huffed and swirled the rest of his around before taking a sip. “Yeah, it’s been a day, hasn’t it?” 

Beau thought about a man with blood bubbling out of his mouth. Suddenly that coconut drink felt spoiled in her mouth and was inching back up her throat.

“Yeah.” She said flatly. 

She could feel his gaze on the side of her face. “You all right, Beau?” 

Gods, she didn’t want to talk to him. Beau felt her eyes stray over to the two figures in the distance again. She saw Jester throw her head back in laughter as Yasha reached forward to swat at her leg, probably so softly. Yasha was so soft, so gentle in her strength. 

“I’m doing great, man.” She said. “What’s not good? Yeah, we might be skirting death every day - either by Molly and his crew of death or the crazy wizard party over in the Empire - but life’s still good, right? We’re all still alive even though it’s statistically impossible by this point. And we both got the girl, right?” She looked over at him and swallowed hard. 

Fjord met her eye, his searching her face in concern. “Are you sure? I just feel like -.” 

“Don’t worry about it, Fjord.” Beau interrupted him, looking away. 

“Beau.” 

She took a deep breath and tried to center herself, tried to remember some part of her training that kept her emotions in check, kept them locked away in a little box in her chest. 

Beau had never been good at that, but she wasn’t some dumb teenager skipping meditation classes anymore. With a deep breath, she put a stopper in that bottle of emotion that threatened to leap out of her chest, claws and teeth out and eager to strike. 

“Really, Fjord.” She glanced at him briefly. “Don’t worry about it.” 

He made a frustrated sound. After a moment, he lifted the coconut up and drained his drink. “I just feel like you’ve been a little distant lately. We used to talk; do you remember that? Being friends? It was nice. I think we could all use a friend right now.” 

Beau watched Jester and Yasha get up and start making their way back. The dark monster of regret and shamed jealousy ran through her chest and up her throat, making her teeth itch and her jaw clench. 

The thing that made her the most angry was how quickly and easily it slipped through her fingers. One day she was enamored and in love and checking in with her best friend every day and felt cared for in return, and the next Yasha was declaring her feelings and Jester was pushing, pushing, pushing them together. And then it was all Fjord. Their late night talks were few and far between and they were about Molly and their imminent death or Fjord, Fjord, Fjord. 

It wasn’t his fault and it hurt like a firebolt to the chest, but Beau couldn’t even look at him anymore. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” She eventually said, right before Jester rejoined them and dropped behind Fjord, her fingers moving to his hair to finish the braid. 

“What are you guys talking about?” She asked. “Yasha is trying to talk to her god, by the way Beau.” 

She hummed and looked down at the sand between her knees. “Just about how awful those coconut drinks were.” 

“I told you that guy looked weird!” She said. “No one who wears that color and sells coconuts is  _ not  _ trustworthy with the drinks they make. Trust me.” 

Beau tried to smile up at Yasha as she joined them and sat down to Beau’s left. Her comforting presence made the tension in her shoulders relax slightly. 

It wasn’t as if she wasn’t happy. 

Happiness just used to look so different.

Later, when they’re talking about Caleb and Trent and all of the trauma and danger that lies in the lines that entangle them, Beau’s mouth opens as her eyes trace blue skin. 

“No one feels good about the one that got away.” 

For a moment, blue eyes meet her own and she’s not talking about a homicidal maniac and his ex-student. She’s talking about falling in love with her best friend and being too scared to do anything about it, until your hearts are both held in other hands. 

Yasha moves slightly to her left and Beau snaps out of it, blinking away from Jester’s face and catching how the sunlight glanced off of the ocean behind her. She swallowed down the feelings in her throat and put them back in the box deep down in her mind. 


End file.
